Uganda has developed in leaps and bounds in recent years, but with modernisation has come a disturbing increase in human sacrifice.The authorities set up an anti-human sacrifice task force in 2009, to try to combat the rise in the number of ritual child killings being performed by witch doctors.Newsnight's Tim Whewell travelled to Uganda, where he met a former witch doctor now working to convert other witch doctors from their practices.His report contains accounts that viewers may find disturbing.Broadcast on Thursday 7 January 2010

Battling Uganda's witch-doctorsBy Tim Whewell BBC News, Uganda A BBC investigation into human sacrifice in Uganda has heard first-hand accounts which suggest ritual killings of children may be more common than authorities have acknowledged.

One witch-doctor led us to his secret shrine and said he had clients who regularly captured children and brought their blood and body parts to be consumed by spirits.

Meanwhile, a former witch-doctor who now campaigns to end child sacrifice confessed for the first time to having murdered about 70 people, including his own son.

The Ugandan government told us that human sacrifice is on the increase, and according to the head of the country's Anti-Human Sacrifice Taskforce the crime is directly linked to rising levels of development and prosperity, and an increasing belief that witchcraft can help people get rich quickly.

In the course of our investigation we witnessed the ritual torching of the shrine of a particularly active witch-doctor in northern Uganda by anti-sacrifice campaigners.

The witch-doctor allowed ceremonial items including conch shells and animal skins to be burned in his sacred grove after agreeing to give up sacrifice.

He told us that clients had come to him in search of wealth.

"They capture other people's children. They bring the heart and the blood directly here to take to the spirits… They bring them in small tins and they place these objects under the tree from which the voices of the spirits are coming," he said.

Asked how often clients brought blood and body parts, the witch-doctor said they came "on average three times a week - with all that the spirits demand from them."

We saw a beaker of blood and what appeared to be a large, raw liver in the shrine before it was destroyed, although it was not possible to determine whether they were human remains.

Extortion

The witch-doctor denied any direct involvement in murder or incitement to murder, saying his spirits spoke directly to his clients.

He told us he was paid 500,000 Ugandan shillings (£160 or $260) for a consultation, but that most of that money was handed over to his "boss" in a nationwide network of witch-doctors.

Head of the Anti-Human Sacrifice and Trafficking Task Force, assistant commissioner Moses Binoga of the Ugandan police, said he knew of the boss referred to - involved in one of five or six witch-doctor protection rackets operating in the country.

"The senior ones extort money from lower people because they deal in illegal things," he told us.

Mr Binoga said police had opened 26 murder cases in 2009, in which the victim appeared to have been ritually sacrificed, compared with just three cases in 2007.

"We also have about 120 children and adults reported missing whose fate we have not traced. We cannot rule out that they may be victims of human sacrifice," he said.

But child protection campaigners believe the real number is much higher, as some disappearances are not reported to police.

Activism

Former witch-doctor turned anti-sacrifice campaigner Polino Angela says he has persuaded 2,400 other witch-doctors to give up the trade since he himself repented in 1990.

“ To punish retrospectively would cause a problem... if we can persuade Ugandans to change, that is much better than going back into the past ” James Nsaba Buturo, Uganda's Minister of Ethics and IntegrityMr Angela told us he had first been initiated as a witch-doctor at a ceremony in neighbouring Kenya, where a boy of about 13 was sacrificed.

"The child was cut with a knife on the neck and the entire length from the neck down was ripped open, and then the open part was put on me," he said.

When he returned to Uganda he says he was told by those who had initiated him to kill his own son, aged 10.

"I deceived my wife and made sure that everyone else had gone away and I was with my child alone. Once he was placed down on the ground, I used a big knife and brought it down like a guillotine."

Asked if he was afraid he might now be prosecuted as a result of confessing to killing 70 people, he said:

"I have been to all the churches… and they know me as a warrior in the drive to end witchcraft that involves human sacrifice, so I think that alone should indemnify me and have me exonerated."

Uganda's Minister of Ethics and Integrity James Nsaba Buturo believes that "to punish retrospectively would cause a problem... if we can persuade Ugandans to change, that is much better than going back into the past."

Child protection activists in organisations such as FAPAD (Facilitation for Peace and Development) and ANPPCAN (African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect) have highlighted recent cases of ritual killing and called for new legislation to regulate so-called "traditional healers".

Witness testimony

In some cases against alleged witch-doctors due to come to trial later this year, police will use the testimony of children who managed to survive abduction.

One such witness is a three-year-old boy called Mukisa, who was left for dead after his penis was hacked off by an assailant.

He survived thanks to quick work by surgeons, and later told police he had been mutilated by a neighbour who is known to keep a shrine.

Mukisa's mother told us: "Every time I look at him, I ask myself how his future is going to be - a man without a penis - and how the rest of the community will look at him, with private parts that can neither be attributed to a man or a woman. Every time I recall the normal birth that I had and the way Mukisa is now, it is like the end of the world."

So,Country modernizes -> people get richer -> They want to get richer - > "Kill kids and hack of penises" - > profit?Sometime it's the little things that make me fucking glad I live in a modern country and not a 3d world country, or a backwards culture.

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I saw the thread title, and too often in Africa some warlord or other names himself the leader of 'Christ's army' or 'The legion of God' and starts burning villages. But this... hey, go Christians. Kill the witches.

BTW, its 'witchdoctor', not 'withdoctor'.

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So the current crop of evangelical missionaries messing around in Uganda are good for something after all.

The Christian fundies don't like Muslim Anti Zionism and the Arab nationalists resent the Israeli presence in the Occupied Territories because no one likes to see someone else beat the living shyte out of one's red headed step sibling.

So the current crop of evangelical missionaries messing around in Uganda are good for something after all.

Only a little as you could probably go on a witchdoctor hunting crusade without Christianity. Oh yes and at the same time maybe avoid turning sodomy in to a capital crime. So yeah still not good for that much.

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Not to mention that christian witchhunts have this little habit of turning into "Burn everyone who does not convert".

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This is assuming there actually is an increase in human sacrifice by "witch doctors" and not public hysteria being brewed by the same evangelical missionaries who are now going to "fight" it.

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This is assuming there actually is an increase in human sacrifice by "witch doctors" and not public hysteria being brewed by the same evangelical missionaries who are now going to "fight" it.

Even if that is the case... human sacrifice is bad. So I welcome efforts to contain it. However... um... this is the same Uganda that at the same time is set to start executing gay people, with the same evangelicals performing both roles, so color me displeased.

This is the same continent where, one country over, Albinos are being hunted for their body parts used to create magical talismans. Another country over, pygmy tribespeople are killed and eaten as "forest spirits" whose flesh gives courage in battle. I have no trouble at all believing that human sacrifice is a problem in Uganda.

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There is a witchhunt of sorts being spearheaded by evangelicals in Nigeria. Said "witches" are mostly young children, with a few toddlers, infants, and older ladies thrown in for good measure who are accused of making people sick or whatever which leads to the children being attacked, crippled, and brutally murdered. One preacher confessed to killing over 200 children.

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This is assuming there actually is an increase in human sacrifice by "witch doctors" and not public hysteria being brewed by the same evangelical missionaries who are now going to "fight" it.

Remember, this is Africa, aka the "Dark Continent". If you want to get attention from the mainstream media, you have to paint the natives as superstitious, homicidal savages.

You make that sound as if it is not true.

To be fair, the only reason we (general we, not specific we) in first world countries aren't homicidal (because most are still superstitious, just to a lesser degree) is the presence of a strong central government. As soon as that's gone, we turn just as homicidal and savage (see 'football hooliganism').

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Are these the same Christians who enslave children to make soldiers and dope them up to make said children think they are immune to bullets and to give them a vision of heaven?

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Don't you think it's a little convenient that the vast majority of these stories about evil witch doctors being responsible for death and rape are being told about a continent that European imperialists painted as a land infested with brutal primitives who needed to be civilized by the white man? There may well be some strange stuff going on in the more impoverished, uneducated parts of Africa, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of these reports were exaggerated if not outright fabricated in order to justify Western stereotypes of the "Dark Continent".

And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead.---Old Arabian Proverb

Don't you think it's a little convenient that the vast majority of these stories about evil witch doctors being responsible for death and rape are being told about a continent that European imperialists painted as a land infested with brutal primitives who needed to be civilized by the white man? There may well be some strange stuff going on in the more impoverished, uneducated parts of Africa, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of these reports were exaggerated if not outright fabricated in order to justify Western stereotypes of the "Dark Continent".

Riiiight. So there is a massive conspiracy in place to justify stereotypes about africa. Sure. Get your head out of the tinfoil. You cant fabricate the million-person refugee camps, or the disease. It also just so happens that local governments do keep records of the human sacrifice and witch burnings there, they just cant do shit about it.

Sometimes stereotypes are a travesty. Other times they are tragically true. In this case it is the later.

And it no more reflects on some kind of inferiority in Africans than the state of Europe in, say, the 900s says anything about Europeans. Parts of the world take turns being shitholes and Africa's number has been up for a while.

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And it no more reflects on some kind of inferiority in Africans than the state of Europe in, say, the 900s says anything about Europeans. Parts of the world take turns being shitholes and Africa's number has been up for a while.

I suppose you're right.

And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead.---Old Arabian Proverb

And it no more reflects on some kind of inferiority in Africans than the state of Europe in, say, the 900s says anything about Europeans. Parts of the world take turns being shitholes and Africa's number has been up for a while.

I suppose you're right.

Think of it this way. It has nothing to do with the color of one's skin and everything to do with history. Africa had some damn well advanced civilizations. However the Mediterranean cultures (and subsequently the Med influenced western europeans) and the S. asian cultures got ahead of them because they had something the sub-saharan africans did not. Trade routes from india to the middle east and through the Mediterranean. Trades routes fostered the spread of ideas, language, math, science. Many of the african civilizations had access to trade with the Mediterranean and india through islamic conquest... however by 1300 certain familiar schools of islamic thought came to dominate and there goes that intellectual advancement. They fell behind the europeans and by the time said europeans started exploring outside their home territories they were able to easily dominate and conquer native cultures (in the case of the americas the small pox did not hurt). In addition to repression and slavery they brought with them math, science, engineering and medicine that was more advanced than what the native africans had at their disposal, but to say it was freely handed out to the natives they held under their iron boots would be a bit overgenerous. When the period of colonialism in africa ended, the europeans packed up and left after they redrew all the tribal borders. This led to what is essentially a set of cultures disillusioned with the west that throws the baby of modern science out with the repressive bathwater... and because of those arbitrary borders crams ethnic and religious groups that hate eachother into the same space and trying to run the same governments.

And it no more reflects on some kind of inferiority in Africans than the state of Europe in, say, the 900s says anything about Europeans. Parts of the world take turns being shitholes and Africa's number has been up for a while.

I suppose you're right.

Think of it this way. It has nothing to do with the color of one's skin and everything to do with history. Africa had some damn well advanced civilizations. However the Mediterranean cultures (and subsequently the Med influenced western europeans) and the S. asian cultures got ahead of them because they had something the sub-saharan africans did not. Trade routes from india to the middle east and through the Mediterranean. Trades routes fostered the spread of ideas, language, math, science. Many of the african civilizations had access to trade with the Mediterranean and india through islamic conquest... however by 1300 certain familiar schools of islamic thought came to dominate and there goes that intellectual advancement. They fell behind the europeans and by the time said europeans started exploring outside their home territories they were able to easily dominate and conquer native cultures (in the case of the americas the small pox did not hurt). In addition to repression and slavery they brought with them math, science, engineering and medicine that was more advanced than what the native africans had at their disposal, but to say it was freely handed out to the natives they held under their iron boots would be a bit overgenerous. When the period of colonialism in africa ended, the europeans packed up and left after they redrew all the tribal borders. This led to what is essentially a set of cultures disillusioned with the west that throws the baby of modern science out with the repressive bathwater... and because of those arbitrary borders crams ethnic and religious groups that hate eachother into the same space and trying to run the same governments.

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